


“The feeling of arriving when you’ve nothing left to lose”

by Creamteasforever



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Homeless, Fatlock, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-01
Updated: 2014-08-01
Packaged: 2018-02-11 09:41:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2063304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Creamteasforever/pseuds/Creamteasforever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are days John wonders which one of them is more intimidated by the city. </p><p>The strange thing is, he thinks it may be him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, I had an anonymous prompt saying “I have a fic request! What about a homeless Sherlock fic? John was the one who owned the flat, but everything else is the same. AKA, a rewrite of their meeting? Pretty please?”
> 
> I’m not exactly certain why the Anon thought I’d be a dab hand for this story. It might have been a hunch, it might have been the events of “If you can make an order could you get me one?” (in many ways a trial run for this story, and it’s no coincidence that I started working on “Grand Unified Theory” at the same time). It might have been “White night”, the emotional touchstone for my Mycroft RP – I’d written Mycroft fairly well beforehand, I think, but that was the point when I properly laid out what it is he does, what his relationship with Greg is, and how the two of them come together. Fluffy soap though most of my entries on it are, I do strive for a consistent and logical character [there](http://asktheicemanquestions.tumblr.com/post/87455111384/white-night).
> 
> If, gentle reader, you’ve never thought about how hard it is to get a successful professional mixed up with a homeless person…well, it is. Not as improbable in fiction as it is in real life, but tricky. Neil Gaiman spent several chapters getting something like this to work in “Neverwhere,” and he wasn’t writing romance between the two parties to boot. 
> 
> I tried my very hardest to do justice to the matter; there are genuine homeless people in London who are sleeping rough every night, and this isn’t in quite the same tradition of “cosy English murder mysteries” as have been well and truly trod by many a writer before me, it’s a serious social issue. This material is anything but fluffy and for all my generally light touch, needed careful thought. 
> 
> Still: I had a good go at it. And wrote so many author's notes that they had to go into another chapter, cos I hit the limit.
> 
> One more thing; a lot of the flavour of this, and indeed the entire concept of John's encounter on Hampstead Heath, was borrowed from ideas I was chewing over for a Dirk Gently-Sherlock Holmes crossover I was pondering a while back. Which is now currently in progress. Let’s face it, if I say I’m going to do an AU I eventually will...
> 
> Enjoy!

John Watson does not like London.

Well enough if you happen to be fond of it, he supposes, and there is something to be said for a place with so much history, but he longs for his native city. Edinburgh. His childhood home in the New Town, the museum at the Royal College of Surgeons that inspired him to take up medicine, the Sunday hikes he used to take up Arthur’s Seat, even the bitter, enlivening winds. That’s where all his relatives are, that’s where his friends are, the lucky ones who’ve been able to get by in Scotland all their lives. The one reason he’s staying South for the time being is that it’s easier to save up money here, working profitable weekends at private clinics. Not NHS work, and he feels a little guilty about that (some of the other doctors at St. Bart’s twit him about it, the ones who aren’t doing the same thing themselves), but not sufficiently to stop. Once he has enough to settle down, make a down payment on a nice flat not too far from the Royal Infirmary, he’s going home. 

In the meantime, however, he has to sleep somewhere. Therefore does John maintain an overpriced and oversized flat on Baker Street – in London you have to pay for your privacy, and he sees enough Englishmen during the workday. Current landlady Mrs Hudson is the best of a bad lot, excepting an irritating habit of trying to set him up with people – of both sexes, she’s not prejudiced – and ignoring hints that he’s simply not interested right now. Certainly he has no plans to remain alone for the rest of his life, but here? Now? A relationship doesn’t make sense under the circumstances.

Not to say that he’s celibate, which is why John is currently cruising Hampstead Heath at one o’clock on a Friday night. It’s more than doable, if you stay out of the way of the odd policeman, and he likes the anonymity it provides. A few minutes of quick eager fumbling, everyone goes away satisfied, nothing more expected from either party. Cheaper than the nightclubs, too.

Tonight, John’s feeling choosy – he passes over a reasonable but uninspiring redhead youngster still showing the remnants of adolescent acne, skips the fat smelly bloke who comes every week in the same “My love for camp is ironic” t-shirt. Sometimes the selection’s better than others, but this is just uninspiring.

Then he notices someone a touch out of the ordinary – mature but not middle-aged, built along the lines of the slender, professional type, with an attractive mop of swept-back black hair and a purple silk shirt that’s not only tasty but tasteful. The man sprawls languidly across a bench with a complete air of self-possession, all but inviting someone to come and take him.

John wanders over, would-be casually, and leans against the back of the bench. As if by accident, his hand slips down and brushes across the stranger’s arse; smooth and tight, not much meat on the bones but sufficient onto the purpose. Delightful.

He opens his mouth to say something inviting, but is cut off when the man he’s fondling abruptly squeals and turns over. The light of a gibbous moon reveals an intense, pale face, with astonishing eyelashes and cheekbones that could cut butter. Or melt it, John thinks dreamily. On a one-to-ten scale of physical attractiveness, with five being “good enough to fuck”, he’s looking at someone who scores at least a twelve.

“Oh!” Inquiring, interested, but the exclamation is not in the least romantic.

“Er, hullo?” John says, feeling vaguely taken aback. This is not a hopeful beginning for an assignation. “Are you…are you…”

“On the pull? No. Busy with something else.” The man sits up energetically, waves a hand inviting him to sit down; bewildered, John does so, fussily crossing his legs. “You thought I was waiting for a partner?”

“Well, you did sort of look the part.”

“Excellent. That’s exactly the disguise I was going for.” He seems genuinely delighted by this, as though it’s some sort of prize to look available in London’s best cruising ground. John tries to imagine what sort of scenario would make this conversation remotely plausible.

“Oh, I get it. You’re a policeman?”

“Not exactly. Plain clothes would be more like it. I’ve been waiting half an hour for a suspect to show up.”

“To…arrest? You’re not looking for people like me, are you?”

His new acquaintance laughs, with good humour rather than disparagement. “No, just one very particular somebody. I’ve been aiding Scotland Yard with some…inquiries, on the matter, but I need proof first. Though it’s beginning to look as though he’s not coming tonight.”

“Erm. I see.”

“Lord –, as a matter of fact.”

John recognises the name; one of the more irritating figures in Parliament, blathering about good old-fashioned British values whenever the opportunity for a telly appearance presents itself. “Blimey. Mind if I watch?”

“Actually, I would.” The man fiddles with a cheap digital camera, polishing accumulated dust out of one corner with a soft spotted handkerchief. “There might be a certain amount of running and chaos involved. Best to leave these things to those who understand them, you know.”

“Look at it this way,” John wheedles. “If I leave, someone else will be along in the next ten minutes. You’ve made it clear you’re busy, all right, I can deal with that. The next person to show up might not be so understanding on the matter.”

“You really think so?”

“I know so. You’re gorgeous. Can’t imagine why no one’s been by to bother you yet.”

“Thank you,” the man says, and blushes. “Wasn’t positive, honestly…well, never mind. Oh look, there’s our quarry. Shhh.”

They watch with bated breath as the Lord in question strolls through the bushes in the company of a handsome rugby player, already as well known in the tabloids for his lurid affairs as his drop kicks. John first nudges closer, then abandons formality for the sake of making their appearance somewhat less conspicuous than two men obviously hanging around spying; his partner clucks impatiently, trying to get a clear shot through their amusing tangle. Eventually there’s a telling click, and then another, and John catches a derisive, gleeful expression on his partner’s face. It’s clearly not directed at him at all; for all the attention the man’s paying there might as well be a herd of elephants on top of him as a lover.

“That’s enough for my purposes. Many thanks.” He adroitly wiggles out from under and tucks the camera into his pocket. John huffs out a breath, more than a little dissatisfied with how this is turning out. Then - “Oh dear,” and the man jumps up and starts running for it, full pelt. John rises in bewilderment and then realises what’s occurred; the rugby player is coming toward them, very quickly, looking less than pleased. 

So he turns and starts off at a good clip as well, but he’s not a trained professional and is therefore helpless when the heftily-built athlete actually runs past and tackles his handsome stranger, efficiently knocking the pair of them over. The camera goes flying into the air; John grabs hold of it and is rooted to the ground for a second, torn as to what to do.

There’s a bellow of “Get that out of here!”, and John understands; he’s to save the evidence, not hang around trying to play the hero. He hugs the camera to his chest and runs off, but is slowed up by continual looks back; the rugby player seems to have forgotten about him and is busily pummeling the life out of his victim. All John can think of is that the way things are going, his stranger might be dead before he even hears the man’s name.

"Right then, everyone calm down," someone calls out, in an authoritative voice clearly used to being obeyed.

John breathes out a huge sigh of relief at the sight of a detective-inspector, backed by two officers almost as intimidating, and ventures back cautiously. The Tory MP has vanished, heaven knows where; the rugby player, aware he’s now outmatched, crosses his arms and goes into a sullen silence.

"Lestrade, what are you doing here?" the handsome stranger asks, clearly nonplussed. He rises and carefully dusts his coat off, removing grass stems and particles of dirt from where they’ve been ground in. “You’d said I was being ridiculous, misappropriating my position, and it wasn’t worth your time following up.”

“I know, I know,” the inspector admits. “But the autopsy results about the bruises in that last murder case came back today - ”

“And proved I was right, didn’t it?”

“It did. So I thought it was just as well to see whether this hunch of yours would pan out as well. Did you get the pictures you wanted, then?”

“Right here,” John calls, waving the camera in the air. “It’s with me. I’ve got it.”

“Oh, good lord. Sherlock, who’s this?”

The handsome stranger – or Sherlock, then – looks speculatively over at him and shrugs.

“Well, judging by what he was up to while I was obtaining the evidence…I suppose you could call him my new boyfriend.”

 

Half an hour later they are at Scotland Yard, talking in a back room and drinking tea. John takes his with two sugars and no milk, as is his wont, and feels his hands itching; he offered to apply his medical knowhow to Sherlock’s injuries and was flatly refused. The man is of the “no painkillers” school of thought, evidently, and contents himself with an ice pack applied to much-abused ribs. Plus tea, naturally: he pours himself half a mug, dumps in the remainder of the sugar bowl and fills up the remaining space with cream. In John’s opinion, the concoction does not look remotely drinkable.

“At any rate, it’s a clear case of assault,” Lestrade tells them; he is standing in the doorway, sorting out a few last details before going back to attend to the rugby player. “So there’s that much, at least.”

“I didn’t want anything on him, I was asked to check up on the Lord. Not that it’ll hurt my case if he’s dating a man that trigger-happy. The camera was sufficient in any event.” Sherlock nods sympathetically at John, perceiving the man’s bewilderment. “Someone asked me to see if there was any damaging information in our suspect’s background. Funnily enough, I seem to have found some.”

“Well, I’ll be taking my leave of you for the night. Donovan, Anderson, I’ll need you in a minute. See these two out when they’re done.” Lestrade leaves, and there is a brief and awkward silence.

“So the freak has a boyfriend.” Donovan is as imposing here as she is in the field. “Are we going to be inundated by wannabe detectives now?”

“Can’t be worse than you,” Sherlock retorts spiritedly. They trade insults back and forth for a few minutes, with neither party noticeably getting the better of the exchange; John picks up that her first name is Sally, she’s somewhat more impressed by Sherlock then she’s willing to let on, and she’s apparently in a relationship with the other officer, Anderson.

Who has been pointedly sulking since they arrived (his mood apparently not improved by the lack of sugar by the time the bowl makes it to him) and now interjects, talking not to Sherlock or Donovan but him, John.

“Not the most obvious pick for a lover. You do know he’s homeless, right?”

The comment comes loudly and garishly, cutting sharply across the other quarrel. Sherlock flushes and pointedly ignores the officer. Donovan rolls her eyes, as though an indiscreet family member had mentioned something rude at the dinner table.

John catches himself frowning, and makes himself smooth over the expression; here and now is not the time nor place. Instead he forcibly turns the conversation into safer channels, asking stupidly obvious questions about what’s going to happen to the rugby player now and whether they can get the Lord on anything. Sherlock catches his eye and looks very nearly grateful.

“That,” John says, as they walk out of the station together and meander towards St. James’ Park, “was the most fun I’ve had since I’ve been in London.”

“Come now,” Sherlock says, though a grin crosses his features, “you must have done something more enjoyable than chasing down a couple of sordid criminals. It’s only the most exciting city in the world.”

“But it’s boring!” John wails, before he can stop himself. It’s not wise baiting inhabitants of any place with how much you like a different one down the way, he knows that much. Any normal evening he’d never say such a thing, but his blood is still rushing.

“Nonsense. It has me here, for one.”

“Okay. One interesting thing. So far that’s been it.”

Sherlock’s smile turns to a patient sadness and he shakes his head in exaggerated fashion. “I can see that you’re a busy medical professional who regards himself as having no time for hobbies and very little in the way of a social life, but if you’re attaching yourself to me this strongly, you’re in worse straits than I am.”

John blinks. It’s an unsympathetic but fair assessment, and the honesty stings. Not sufficiently to ward off curiosity, however; as Sherlock quickens and moves away, John increases his own walking pace.

“How’d you guess all that? I mean, you’re right…”

“The logic’s so simple it’s hardly worth mentioning. You told me you’re a doctor yourself, and there’s never any such thing as an underemployed physician in London, not one practicing at St. Bart’s. The fact that we’re even conversing now indicates that you don’t talk to nearly enough people and tend to glom on to those you do end up interacting with by chance. You’re probably the sort who tries to strike up awkward conversations with fellow passengers on the Tube, or think they’d like to. Which in turn indicates that whatever modes of entertainment you use to amuse yourself are less than satisfying, and you find yourself increasingly bored.” Sherlock pulls up short. “Are you going to keep following me?”

“Well, yeah. As long as you’ll let me. I wouldn’t mind doing this again.”

The man’s eyes narrow; his eyes, previously occupied in rapid, intense scans of the street, now study John intensely. Their sweeping gaze is unnervingly vivid. “You’re actually quite serious about this, aren’t you? Despite everything, you want to keep chasing after me like some kind of lost puppy, tag along on my cases and see if you can do something slightly more active next time. Throw yourself into this unofficial detecting lark despite not having the slightest idea of its most basic principles.”

“Yes.”

“I’ll try you on probation. Undoubtedly you’re busy during the day, so I’ll only contact you for case investigations that can happen at night. After nine o’clock should be sufficient, I presume?”

“Um. Yes.”

“Fine. Mobile number.”  
John scrawls it on the back of an old receipt and hands it to Sherlock, who smiles at him and stuffs the paper in his pocket. “You’d best catch a cab and get some sleep. I’ll be seeing you again.” 

“Honestly?”

“Scout’s honour!” Sherlock calls, ducking away down an alley. In seconds he’s vanished into the night. And that’s that.

John stands on the street corner, without even a phone number to show for his evening out, and spends a few moments in a brown study. That was inexplicable, and ludicrous, and not remotely the way he’s accustomed to life going.

He laughs softly to himself and goes off to find that cab. Never mind Baker Street, it’ll be quicker to go kip at the hospital before his shift starts.

 

“Just so you know, I’m not going to ask,” John says next time, as they sit staring at the floor of a bookie’s basement. It turns out that detection involve more waiting around and less exciting running then he’d have guessed. Sherlock acts as though this is only to be expected.

“About how I deduced the tunnel? I thought I just explained that, it was the knees of his trousers.”

“Oh! Yeah, that all made sense. I mean, once you told me. I wouldn’t have figured it out myself.”

“Very good. So, having established that you understand what we’re doing here, what was it that you weren’t going to ask me?”

John harrumphs, at a loss. Sherlock chuckles and waves a hand at him indulgently.

“You can. It’s not a great secret, as you’ll have picked up. Though I could have wished you to have found out in some way besides bloody Phillip Anderson. That man lowers the IQ of any room he’s in.”

“Sod him then. But…how? I mean, you’re obviously brilliant, I can’t imagine what happened.”

“Heroin,” Sherlock says, completely unabashed. “After three years in university I couldn’t stand the boredom of the whole tedious charade any longer. Had a nervous breakdown, skipped out on my final year, came back to London and was hooked more or less immediately. Eventually I ran out of money, which rather forced me to get clean and embark on my current impetuous course of existence. It’s less difficult than it sounds, once you know the tricks.”

“Um,” John says, completely floored. He does not know how to respond to this, but Sherlock is looking at him as though expecting a question. He grapples around for one and finds refuge in the obvious. “It must make sleeping a bit difficult.”

“White shirt and black trousers so you look like an office worker stealing a quick nap, twelve to six in one of our metropolis’ many fine parks. If I need more sleep there’s always one of the bus routes. The Circle Line used to be quite good, before they put in the break at Hammersmith.”

"What about when it’s raining?"

"I fall back on libraries. Lovely places. Charm the librarians by talking about the latest books you’ve been enjoying, drape yourself with the right sort of heavy reading, you can get away with a lot.”

John thinks of the many recent library closures the last few years, but doesn’t press the point. “Food?”

“I’m homeless, I’m not utterly destitute. There’s an important distinction there. And then there’s always university events and such like where you can count on a decent feed. Muss up your hair a bit, change into the right types of t-shirts and tight trousers and everyone assumes you’re still a student. Of course,” Sherlock says, modestly. “I’m fortunate. It helps to be able to look the part.”

You look a damn sight better than that, John wants to say, but doesn’t.

Little snippets of information come out one by one, as they impatiently await their suspect. There’s a Pakistani family south of the river that lets him use their laundry once a week; Sherlock helped get the father off a completely unjustified charge that would have seen him deported. They’ve offered their hospitality, but it’s a family of four in a studio flat. “Very kind of them, but that’d be such an imposition. To say nothing of the overcrowding regulations.” 

Washing is apparently not a problem; there’s showers by the swimming pond not far from where they met on Hampstead Heath itself (John dearly wants to know how the man’s avoided a few quick fondles under such circumstances, but reluctantly admits to himself that they don’t know each other well enough to inquire. Funny how their increasing familiarity lessens the questions that can be asked.)

There is a very faint sound of a knock far away under the earth, and Sherlock puts a finger to his lips. John quiets immediately; they are ready and waiting when the burglar comes through. He is not a little startled to see them.

Sherlock grabs his collar while John calls the police; Lestrade arrives in minutes to formally take over the charges. The two of them slip quietly out the back to enjoy a coffee together.

 

It goes like this for a few weeks; Sherlock will contact him out of the blue about a case, they’ll go out and do some investigating or waiting or spying, and fade out when the police appear. He has a perfectly functional phone but absolutely refuses to call anybody with it. Instead, he sticks to texting. 

"It’s the reinvention of the telegram for the modern age," the detective explains one night, over chip sandwiches in Camden. “The perfect format for short-form communications, with every letter and symbol key to the message. It encourages brevity of thought, elegance of style, the full-fledged consideration of what’s genuinely required and what is not in communications…”

“Lack of repetition?” John puts in. Sherlock snorts.

What remains unsaid in this flow of eloquence is that it is, of course, a great deal cheaper than hanging around chatting on the phone. But Sherlock clearly doesn’t feel the need to belabour the obvious, so John allows it to remain unsaid.

One such message arrives mid-morning, perhaps a month into their on-and-off relationship. It’s lengthier than most: “Fee paid for the MP case, even on appeal he’ll lose next election. Come to Baker Street Station, Italian restaurant my treat.”

John allows himself a scowl – he can’t stand Italian food – but doesn’t have the heart to mention it. It’s probably all his friend can afford, and if paying for both their meals makes Sherlock feel comfortable and happy for a change, then so be it. Besides, maybe this is the start of better things. He comes off break and back to work with a certain jauntiness in his step.

It’s been raining all day, so he’s expecting to get wet when he emerges from the Tube station – John has an amused contempt for the type of people who fear the quaintly mild weather down here – but it really is bucketing down now. Fortunately, Sherlock’s on hand, armed with a large black umbrella.

“That looks nice. First purchase?”

“This? Oh, no, I just picked it up at the Lost Property office. Right over there. It’s only a few steps down from your flat.” They begin walking down the street; not too many other pedestrians in their way, in this weather.

“I see. Where’d you lose it?”

“What?”

“If they had it for you at the Lost Property office…erm…they found it for you.”

“Mmm. Minor misunderstanding. It wasn’t quite mine in the first place.”

“But…wait, so you lied to them?”

“John,” Sherlock says patiently, “There are literally thousands of umbrellas lost on the Underground every year. Most of them go unclaimed and are auctioned off or donated to charity. Now, all things considered, am I not the sort of person who you’d expect to be benefitting from a charity umbrella?”

“I wasn’t going to say that, but all right, so you are, that still doesn’t mean -”

“Fine. But that theoretical umbrella I’m entitled to doesn’t do me any good in the here and now, does it? So I simply pop in, identify a nondescript mass-produced brolly that absolutely nobody is going to miss as mine and now we’re going down the street, not being soaked to the bone or catching nasty colds that would put a useful and important doctor out of commission for a week.”

John laughs, helplessly; there’s no arguing with Sherlock’s logic sometimes when he doesn’t wish to be talked out of it, as he very clearly doesn’t this time. “Maybe I wouldn’t mind so much if you hadn’t made it clear that you’ve done this kind of thing before…”

“Don’t sneer. I solved a case once by working out this was how my two chief suspects were transferring parcels untraceably. Lestrade earned a promotion on the back of that one.”

“Now I’m just wondering what happened to the umbrella you acquired then.”

This time it’s Sherlock’s turn to laugh. “Left it on a bus. Someone else picked it up, it all goes around cyclically anyway. Here we are!”

It’s a generic-looking restaurant, with an unpretentious sign saying “Angelo’s”. There’s a wait for a table - even a place like this will be crowded in the dinner hour – but eventually they’re seated in the back room. Sherlock explains this is better, being less noisy than the main room, and devours his share of the bread with enthusiastic abandon.

John flips through the menu, unimpressed by both the selection and the pricing, which seems unexpectedly high for a place that Sherlock can afford to patronise. “I’m curious. Why here, of all the restaurants in London?”

“I helped Angelo out of a tight spot once, and in gratitude sometimes he’ll give me a meal, when I need one. I pay back the favour by eating here when I have the money.”

“Mmm,” John says, wondering just what sort of spot the restaurateur could have muddled into. On the back page there’s pizzas, half the price of the rest of the dishes. Good. Not awe-inspiring, but they’re not faffy like most of this stuff and it’ll feed them both without taking too large a chunk out of his friend’s budget. Disconcertingly, Sherlock seems to have followed this entire train of thought. There’s no other explanation why he would put down the heel he’s chewing just to say: “A few thousand pounds. Not bad for a few weeks’ work and some bruised ribs.”

“That’s great,” John says, shifting a tad uneasily and spearing a piece of bread with his own fork. “You’ll be able to put down a deposit on a flat or something now, won’t you?”

The pause that follows this statement is only momentarily longer than that of a normal conversation break, but suffices to indicate a faux pax has been committed. Thankfully, the waiter interrupts for their order.

Sherlock finishes the bread and wipes his mouth decorously. “Just because I have a certain amount of money now doesn’t mean I’m guaranteed to have rent money next month. Sometimes investigations take more ready cash then you’d expect, and then I have some frankly inexplicable expenses, and there just isn’t much point being in housing one month and out the next. The set-up I have now may strike you as…slightly peculiar, but it works, just about.” He presses his lips together, as though repressing a more telling comment, but smiles.

“Right. Sorry.”

“Not your fault. Even I’d have trouble reading myself, if I didn’t have a certain advantage in that regard.”

“I just wonder how you get by. And if it wouldn’t be easier for you in the long run to be set up somewhere.”

“You mean have a proper job and so forth? Stacking boxes at Tesco’s? Occasionally I’ll do that when my funds are more than unusually low.” Sherlock admits, reluctantly as though he regards this admission as a weakness. “I’d much rather get by with my earnings out of cases. It’s not always monetary. There was a memorable one with a sweet old widow, not much cash but her husband had a well-chosen wardrobe. She let me take a look, and I picked out this.” He fingers the blue tweed coat lovingly. “Cleared his name of embezzlement accusations. The funny thing was that it wasn’t a murder case at all, he’d just happened to die at a convenient moment. Four years apiece for the company directors once Lestrade was through with them.”

John strives to look unsurprised. Of course Sherlock wouldn’t have run down to a store and purchased a thousand-pound coat new. Obviously it was going to be second-hand, and in fact the story’s a more cheerful one than he’d have expected. At least it didn’t have bloodstains washed out of it or anything.

“But you’re being very nosy this evening. Time to turn the tables. When did you come down from Edinburgh then, before or after Afghanistan?”

Opening his mouth, John is startled when his own natural voice comes out instead of the usual crisp RP, the unpolished accent he’d worked so hard to subdue while working in London. “An how’d you ken that then?”

Sherlock chuckles. “You’re homesick. It comes off you in waves if anyone was paying attention, which no one except myself has done. After that it’s just a matter of noticing the vowels.”

The pizza finally arrives at this point, and they briefly pause their conversation to delve in. Prosciutto is tastier than John had expected.

“After. I was invalidated out of the army once I’d been shot, even though the limp was mostly psychosomatic. I was going to go home right off, but it turned out I could make a lot more money down here.” He experiences a brief rush of reminiscences – dear lord, nostalgia for the army? Or for his unit, rather, the last place where he felt comfortable indulging his Scottish identity. For a moment he dwells fondly on the thought of Sholto.

“So you’re a doctor who was quite keen on soldiering, and a Scot pretending to be English. Interesting combination.”

“Patients feel more comfortable when you speak the same way they do. I wasn’t going to do this forever.”

“But it’s curious. We’re both people who’ve put a great deal of effort into creating protective facades, facades we’re not wholly comfortably with but which are conveniently normal. In both cases as much to skip the bother of explanations as because we actually want to.”

“Oh, stop it with that kind of language. That’s the sort of malarkey that made me throw over therapy.” He thinks of the woman with a certain distaste; she’d been the one to suggest that he’d be happier and more cheerful if he could adapt himself to local standards. John had thought about it, decided to take the advice at least superficially, but walked out of the session and never looked back. There didn’t seem much point in talking to someone about your feelings when the response was that you should pretend they weren’t there.  
Sherlock’s looking at him; he’s let too long a lapse go by. “The accent’s from my father, mother was Scottish but he was English,” John explains. “They thought it’d be just as well if I could switch back and forth as needed, and it seems they were right. So I come by it honestly.”

“Ah. While I remain hypocritical mutton pretending to be lamb under any circumstances?”

“That’s not what I said at all,” John starts angrily, then stops when he sees Sherlock’s mildly teasing expression.

“I didn’t think you did. Care for more pizza?” He has scoffed three pieces already and is eying another.  
John would, actually – he’s only had two slices and the hospital was busy today, he’d done a lot of running around – but the nagging feeling in his gut won’t kill him, and the food will do Sherlock more good. “I think I’m done. You might as well take the rest with you.”

“Hmm. Positive?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“All right.” He starts on his fourth, with no appreciable drop in appreciation. “The rest will do for breakfast tomorrow. You know, perhaps that’s what draws us together. The opportunity to be ourselves.”

“If you’ll remember, I didn’t actually set out to tell you that.”

“You’re hanging around with me.” Sherlock demonstrates an excellent specimen of his smug expression, the one guaranteed to make everyone from small children to grandmothers want to hit him. “And you’re quite intelligent enough to have observed I notice small details and inconsistencies about everyone I encounter. It’s rather my job. Of course you knew, subconsciously if nothing else, that I was going to notice eventually. Dessert? They do very fine cannoli here.”

They have the dessert and abandon weighty topics to admire the pastry. Even John has to admit it’s tasty. The detective happily pays off his check and says he’ll have to run, there’s somewhere in Essex he’s obliged to be five o’clock the next morning. Another case, as always.

“Just one thing,” John calls out as Sherlock starts walking off, the take-out carton wedged securely under his arm. “How did you know that I wouldn’t have an umbrella when I arrived?”

“Deduction, John Watson. Think about it and the answer’s obvious.”

John does think about it, on and off, for a solid day thereafter, but he never does work out the solution. By the time he remembers to ask, three weeks later, the detective has to admit he doesn’t even remember. 

 

“You know, I’d think you’d hate hanging around with me,” he tells Sherlock one time, as they sip sodas in a rooftop cafe just off Regent Street: they’re waiting for a maniac to come in and try to smash the tacky bust of Queen Victoria behind the counter. “You’re so English. I’m almost the classic Scot. Irn-Bru drinking, about had my fill of Cockneys, money-obsessed.”

“But it’s not an end in itself,” Sherlock reminds him. “It’s merely a means, with you. And it’s not difficult for me to be sympathetic towards someone else with hopeless ambitions.”

“It is not hopeless,” John says stoutly. “Only a few more years, and then I really am going back to Scotland. I’ll make it work, you watch.”

“Which accounts for your eternal optimism. Consider yourself fortunate.”

John, as he always does, self-polices himself, trying to see whether he’s in danger of crossing a line. Often as not he finds himself thinking there’s no appropriate response except apologetic guilt. Another bad habit he’s picked up down here.

But Sherlock’s smile is untouched by envy or regret, and before they can converse more a masked man barges in to smash a huge blue diamond out of the bust. After that they’re a little preoccupied.

 

Time passes. John watches Sherlock develop cases, nearly finishing them before handing them over for Lestrade to complete almost as an afterthought. The inspector accepts them, and a few days later an item will show up in the papers about Scotland Yard having triumphantly brought down a blackmailer. Or a thief, or a murderer. 

“You’re taking advantage of him, using his expertise without paying him,” he says one night to Lestrade. On the quiet: he’d lingered after Sherlock’s triumphant exit, sensing the man wouldn’t appreciate being around during this conversation. For response the officer merely shrugs.

“Sherlock likes it this way. I’ve sounded him out a few times about getting him into the force, but he won’t hear of it. Not much more I can do, is there?”

“You could pay him something. A lot of his clients can’t afford much themselves.”

“I’m not an accountant. My department doesn’t have a budget for paying off unofficial consulting detectives. They don’t give me a double salary, either.”

“Yes, but then there’s the credit to consider as well. If only you’d do something to help him along a bit, maybe mention him in one of these news articles or something…”

“Sit and listen, because I am not repeating myself on this,” Lestrade says, staring him down. “You and Sherlock tag along with us on sufferance. I’ve put my neck out for him a few times because I like him personally, and he is useful, but it’s a very delicate matter. As an ordinary member of the public, which he technically is, I’ve no right to give him access to information that only people with warrant cards ought to have. You can rest assured that my replacement would be considerably less understanding than I am. Do you understand now, why it’s important that he remain a non-entity? That I not admit he’s resolved cases for me in any potentially illegal fashion?”

John breaks into a cold sweat; it comes to him how close he’s come to jeopardising the one thing that truly makes his friend feel useful. He doesn’t respond. Lestrade nods understandingly and softens his tone.

“It’s the best I can do, all right? If you could persuade him to join up I’d be more than glad to be his subordinate, but with Sherlock’s age and inclinations against him it’s not likely. What I can do is mention him to people in search of a detective. That investigation on Hampstead Heath, the one you blundered into, that was the biggest case he’s ever been involved in and it was me who passed his name along. I help him out where I can.”

“Oh. I guess you’re protecting him, then.”

"If you like to call it that."

Now I’m just wondering why you do this for him at all,” John says meekly. It is just as well to be obsequiously ingratiating right now.

“It’s aided my career more than once, I’d be a fool not to take advantage. And believe me, if I have a chance to do anything more direct I will, but you have to be discreet about these things.”

“All right. Thank you for being so honest with me.” He rises and moves to the door, before he can say anything else stupid this evening.

“Also, it annoys Anderson,” Lestrade calls after him. “Never underestimate the fun of annoying Anderson.”

“What was that, sir?” Anderson barges in through the doorway, a sheath of papers in his arms.

“Oh, nothing,” Lestrade says lightly. “Nothing at all.”

John decides he’d best just leave them to it. At least Sherlock won’t be harmed by the conversation, and that’s the main thing. 

 

There are things that cannot be said between two adult men in their precarious position, predicated on curiosity, sexual attraction, and a why-the-hell-not attitude brought on by their serendipitous meetings. Given that there is a certain peculiar equality between them, given that Sherlock is by far the brighter one in the relationship, there’s still plenty of room for awkward misunderstandings. Especially where favours are concerned.

Like the fairy cakes incident. One time John gets away with fobbing off a jar of fancy organic American peanut butter on the detective; it was foisted upon him at the annual hospital raffle, and he genuinely can’t stand the flavour. When he tries to repeat the trick two weeks later, with rich chocolate fairy cakes bought from one of the nicest bakeries in London, Sherlock rebukes him for it. Adamantly.

“Not a present to you, and you didn’t buy these for yourself. That’s evident.”

“I was thinking of giving them to Harry if you didn’t want them,” John says carefully, not bothering to ask for the chain of deductions this time. “It was a sort of impulse purchase. I need someone to take them off my hands, they’re too sweet for my taste.”

“Then by all means, give them to your sister. Or the birds. I’ve no intention of eating them either.”

Fortunately, it turns out that Harry does like chocolate fairy cakes, so at least they don’t go to waste. He avoids mentioning his relationship with Sherlock to her; it’s unlikely she’d understand, and he doesn’t quite know how to explain. They said at university that if you couldn’t describe a phenomenon to another person, you probably don’t comprehend it yourself.

One person wholeheartedly in favour of their relationship is Mrs Hudson, who is clearly planning wedding bells as soon as he admits to acquiring a sort-of boyfriend. Once she dragged the information out of him by force.

“Sounds a lovely sort. Aren’t you going to invite him to stay, dearie?”

“Well, if he wanted to…” John leaves off. There is no use explaining the delicate balance in their lives to this sweet-hearted old lady, about Sherlock’s sensitivity and mulish behaviour. “It’s not that simple.”

“If you’re too shy to ask, why, I will for you. Bring him over early one day, before I’ve gone to bed. I’ll fix it all up.”

Yes, that conversation would go well, wouldn’t it? John begs off without revealing the main reason for his reticence, but eventually she ferrets it out, god knows how – chasing after Sherlock in the street and demanding an explanation, for all he knows - and redoubles her efforts. “But he’s such a lovely man! I can’t think why you’re not taking care of him here. That flat’s big enough for the two of you dearies.”

“Because he doesn’t want to,” John says through gritted teeth. Even if the idea had occurred to him (and all right, the idea has, some rainy nights when he’s awake late and wondering how Sherlock’s getting on), such an arrangement has so many problems it’s almost not worth even considering. In a way it’s his own too-keen willingness that makes him mistrust the idea. He does fancy Sherlock, rather a lot, and doesn’t quite know that their meetings would have the same enjoyable frisson if the man ever turned him down flat as a sexual partner.

Or contrariwise, say that Sherlock did like him, or was prepared to pretend to for the sake of a warm cosy shelter in Central London – good lord, the man wouldn’t be the first – how would that go, with all the power and money in the relationship on one side and sexual attraction on the other? It edges far too close to keeping a rent boy for his tastes, robs Sherlock of that fierce dignity the man seems always to have maintained. How would it be if they decided they couldn’t take each other and split up? Would he have to evict his ex back on to the streets?

Well, he doesn’t want to know whether he’d be capable of that. He doesn’t want to think about the possibility at all, actually. It’s a messy, unsavoury business and John is willing to just take Sherlock at his word that for the time being, he has the being homeless problem more or less under control and there is absolutely no point worrying about tomorrow until tomorrow.

“You don’t think he’s still taking drugs, do you? I’m sure he isn’t.”

John shakes his head; he has kept an eye out for symptoms, but Sherlock looks after his health diligently even if he is invariably on the thin side of normal. Nothing’s impossible, but the man’s need to be able to chase halfway across London is a fairly good argument against, let alone poverty. He’ll never make that much on cases, with no proper license or office to attract clients. 

Sherlock doesn’t ever ask about Mrs Hudson, though he must have deduced that there was some such person and there’s a hole in the conversation where a landlady would normally be. As far as John is concerned, this is all to the good.

One Monday in September, his stoic efforts at the hospital are rewarded. A proper promotion, with more interesting responsibilities, and more importantly a considerable increase in the number of pounds he merits a week. He can’t wait for evening; instead of texting, he calls Sherlock and leaves a voice message describing the good news.

“Take me to a pub tonight, please. Somewhere close by where we can get well and properly sloshed, nobody will mind, and where I can’t possibly run across anyone I know. We’re going to celebrate this properly.”

Sherlock seems more than a little dubious, but obediently takes him to a wine bar only a few minutes away from St. Bart’s. John pours half a bottle of a very ordinary claret down his throat in less time than it took to walk there, then orders a round for the entire bar to general acclaim. It’s the first time he’s been able to buy his friend a drink, after all the time they’ve spent together. Seeing Sherlock stick to his regular ginger beer even now is mildly disappointing, but not unforgivably so.

 

The night goes a little blurred after that, but John distinctly remembers how it ends. Fumbling with condoms in a piss-soaked back alley, the two of them giggling madly and groping each other’s flies open like hapless teenagers, and then he’s finally doing what he’s ached after for months now: ramming his way into that luxurious bottom, in and out in a joyous ecstasy of motion. He leans forward into it and notes the thinness of the body he’s hugging, but for the moment that doesn’t concern him a jot. 

“God, Sherlock. I was right, you are such a tight-arse.”

He can hear Sherlock’s gleeful, pleasured gasping, very different from the man’s usual dry tones. “And you – ha, ooh – I suppose you think that’s hilarious?”

“No. What’s hilarious is that it’s starting to rain. I’m getting wet.”

“Oh, so that wasn’t you. Of all the times for the weather to change. If you wouldn’t – ooh - object - do hurry up and finish before we get soaked?”

John, bewildered by animalistic sensations, comes to and finishes as quickly as possible, flailing as his shoes slip on the wet stone. Sherlock yelps as they slide-stumble backwards across the alley, their movement arrested only when they hit the opposite wall. He leans down to pull up his trousers.

“But I didn’t do you yet,” John wails, overcome by an intense desire to make Sherlock feel as gorgeous as he does right now. It seems terribly discourteous of the universe to get in the way of their good times.

“Oh, if you insist! Make it quick, would you?”

Which is how Doctor John Watson comes to be kneeling in his shirtsleeves, in the rain, giving a homeless man a blowjob. Somehow he didn’t think his life would ever come to this.

Sherlock kisses him afterwards and stuffs him in a black cab, tipping the driver a couple of pounds from his own pocket. John is drunkenly surprised when the vehicle pulls up at Baker Street, but staggers upstairs to bed and wakes up with a ghastly hangover the next day.

When Sarah asks how he celebrated, he makes a feeble gag about having had one too many and leaves the rest unsaid.

 

The next time he sees Sherlock, (it’s the Number 25 to Ilford; John doesn’t even know why, yet), the first words the man says are “I don’t think we should do that again.”

“Why not?” It hadn’t been the best sex he’d ever experienced – there were more comfortable times, places, and states of mind – but for sheer enthusiasm it’d had everything to recommend it. The partner certainly couldn’t be better. He didn’t need Sherlock’s deductive skill to tell that the other man had gloried in it.

“Nothing to do with that,” comes the too-hasty response; Sherlock can always read the obvious. “No, it was mostly what you were talking about in the bar.”

John frowns. “I didn’t think I’d said anything too insulting.”

“You didn’t,” Sherlock reassures him. “But…you know, after the first quart, you dropped the English diction again. Spent ages talking to me about how much you missed Edinburgh, and the house you’re planning to buy up there in a few years.”

As Sherlock describes it, the memories fade in slowly, like a developing photograph. Right. It had gone something like that.

“I don’t want to be involved with someone who’s still that beholden to…well, somewhere that isn’t here.” 

There’s a tremble in the man’s voice that is not attributable solely to the vehicle’s bumpy motion, though doubtless that’s not helping. “You know, I’d thought that after being here this long, you’d have developed some appreciation for London. I’ve shown you quite a bit of it on our cases. Is this all just something you’re amusing yourself with, am I just a way for you to pass the time until you go home?”

John winces; it abruptly occurs to him how thoughtless a subject the intended house must have been. The consequent feeling of guilt washes over and subdues another far less worthy reaction, that he, John Watson, successful and well-regarded physician, has just been turned down by…well, by Sherlock. One of whom is much better regarded by the world at large, and it isn’t the detective. 

But he won’t, doesn’t dare, quarrel with Sherlock. Do that and the man will probably vanish into this city of eight million people never to be seen again. John doesn’t need to be told that if an unforgiveable breach opens between them, just now, it’d be his doing. 

So John doesn’t express his gut reaction and instead apologies for his thoughtlessness, swears truthfully that he comes along to look at peculiar dancing man graffiti or Chinese pottery exhibits because he wants to understand the attendant mysteries and watch their solving, does everything he can think of to placate the man. Sherlock sternly quizzes him about their investigations to see if he’s paid any attention at all; more than once he blesses the physician’s memory that allows him to have stored away so many obscure details. They ride the bus to and all the way back from Ilford again, and Sherlock appears somewhat mollified by the time they bid each other good night.

That night, though, John lies awake a long time even though the day should have worn him past endurance. Sherlock’s right. They can’t be a successful couple if one wants to be north and one south. Britain’s so small, really, and yet the difference between one capital and the other is hours and lifestyles apart.

For the first time, he thinks about what Sherlock would actually do with himself up in Edinburgh. No network of friendly contacts, no encyclopedic knowledge of the local colour – and Sherlock’s memory for information about his beloved city is apparently inexhaustible. No Lestrade to feed him juicy cases, certainly.

If they went up there together the detective would have nothing. Naught to support or rely on but his husband – it would have to be husband, for the man to even think about going. Could he be persuaded into considering wedding vows? Possibly. It wasn’t Sherlock who was drunk in the alley that night.

But with a jolt, John realises that he doesn’t actually like the picture of northern domestic bliss very much. The man he’s come to know and like – to love, then, if he’s being honest with himself – is a Londoner to the core. He doesn’t want to tear that away from Sherlock’s identity. It seems more than a little cruel.

But then, the pull of his own home is strong. All the way through his tour of duty in Afghanistan, the terror and pointless deaths he couldn’t stop, dreaming of Edinburgh had kept him sane. Thoughts of cobbled streets and bracing cold balanced against the sand and heat.

For the next few days the dilemma has him writhing miserably. There is no good way around it one way or the other. One or both of them is going to suffer whatever happens. 

Sherlock texts him at eight o’clock that Saturday morning.

“Case nearly done. Come to Blackfriars.”

John contemplates the message and decides, not wholly regretfully, that he can’t; in half an hour he’s due at the private clinic and they’ll be annoyed if he’s skipped out on work for a murder. Sherlock knows his schedule, but he texts back a reminder anyway.

For the rest of the day there is nothing, and he’s starting to worry about having irrevocably wrecked their relationship after all. Then, a quarter of an hour before he gets off work, another text arrives. “Waiting outside. Hurry up.”

And the detective is indeed there when John comes out, talking avidly about his latest bout of cleverness; Lestrade booked a whole gang of drug dealers today. Hurrah, three cheers, and all that. They set off down a medley of streets that John doesn’t even try to keep straight in his memory.

Sherlock is pink but looks tired, as though resolving the case has exhausted him more than usual (“it’s taken most of the week, I haven’t had much sleep lately”). Once he’s finished relating the main facts their conversation languishes; one participant can only do so much to keep it up, when the other drops into a queerly abstracted air. Probably just hunger, John thinks, hearing the other man’s stomach moan. He hums to himself, thinking of the huge meal he’s planning to treat them to in celebration. It’s about time Sherlock was recompensed for that pizza. 

After a bare forty-five minutes, they emerge into familiar environs.

"And there’s Baker Street. In case you ever fancy walking here from your clinic, that’s how you’d do it. You could go home again now, if you like."

"Oh, must I?" John protests, not altogether in mockery. "Normally we’d stay out much later than this."

"Well, you do have work on tomorrow."

“But we haven’t even had dinner. I can’t let you go just yet.”

At the word “dinner,” Sherlock shuts his eyes for a moment; a querulous, fretful expression crosses his face. “Not tonight, please. I’m a bit tired.”

It occurs to John that the bright flush might stem from a less healthy cause than high spirits. “Sherlock, are you feeling okay?”

"Course. I’m always all right."

He turns away and retches, leaning heavily against a wall. John hurries up to offer support and gets there just in time; it takes all his strength to hold Sherlock upright out of the puddle of sick, as the man heaves violently again and adds to it materially.

“I’m thinking you’re not, just now,” John says weakly. Years of training kick in before he can start panicking; best thing to do is just to get Sherlock inside to rest. The flat’s literally around the corner.

“All right, so I’m feeling dizzy,” Sherlock mumbles, spitting. A dribble of saliva hangs out the corner of his mouth; he coughs harshly. “And can’t seem to see quite straight all of a…all a sudden…”

“That’ll be the fever. Just lean on me, you’ll be all right.”

Actually, by the time they reach the door of 221 Sherlock is largely unconscious. John carries him over the threshold and drags him upstairs, slamming the door shut to fend off well-meaning intrusions. They make it to the bathroom and John strips away the tweed coat, the clean white dress shirt, to avoid spoiling them. He’s careful not to tear either; Sherlock would never forgive him.

A few minutes pass before the next spasm comes; when it does, Sherlock makes a visible effort not to spew, gulping back bile unhappily.

“Don’t,” John urges, studying his patient for signs that hospitalisation is indicated. Maybe not, the temperature is elevated but doesn’t feel to be past the thirty-nine degree danger zone. He doesn’t dare try a thermometer just yet; best wait a little longer. “You need to get rid of whatever it is. Any idea what’s causing this?”

Sherlock’s cheeks glow an even duller red; he throws up before cautiously lowering himself flat against the ground, too worn even to sit up upright. “Ate something I shouldn’t have. Ought to have followed my instincts…well, I was delving around in a dumpster, there wasn’t exactly a great deal of choice.”

John carries on examining while his mind processes this information. That’s not like the debonair, cleanly man he’s used to. Sherlock must have been desperate.

"I’ve missed all the student functions I’d normally attend, doing this case, haven’t been eating enough," comes the explanation, before John can even inquire. “Thought I’d get a decent feed in this evening with you, but I just couldn’t wait that long.” His face twists, halfway between sobbing and laughing. “Bloody transport. Can’t live with it and can’t live without it.”

It’s a long night. John tries not to think about how if he’d come along and seen the case finished off that morning, Sherlock would probably have two good meals under his belt now and they’d be busily painting the town red in celebration…well, there’s no use blaming himself for what’s past. All he can do is help as much as he can. Neither of them get much sleep.

By morning the attacks have lessened in severity and frequency, but Sherlock is still hot and miserable, stirring himself from the bathroom floor only when absolutely necessary (which is still entirely too often, with his system seemingly intent on expelling everything inside it). For the first time since he’s been in London, John calls in sick to work. If the symptoms grow worse, he’ll stop fussing around with cold cloths and salt-water rinses to simply call an ambulance.

In fact, he does ask Sherlock if that’d be preferable, but before the man can even muster a phrase the thoughts are visible on his face. There’s a great deal of humiliation there, upset about having to explain the cause of his sickness, distress at being ill in front of another, a certain self-directed anger at being sick at all on top of the mere physical disorientation. Clearly the situation is already bad enough.

“I’d rather not, if it isn’t too much trouble.”

“Then it isn’t. I don’t want you worrying.”

The day is not a pretty one; John spends most of the day mopping up after, pouring water into his patient to ward off dehydration, and generally nursing. He’s trained for this work. It’s what he does. In the usual unmentionable-to-patients fashion, the doctor is almost enjoying himself; he wouldn’t hold a position at one of the most prestigious hospitals in London if he wasn’t exceptionally good. There’s never been an opportunity for him to look after the detective like this before. 

And come late afternoon, events have definitely taken a turn for the better. Sherlock’s not been sick for a few hours and asks if he can please go rest in the sitting room for a bit; some fresh air would do him good. “I am rather used to it, you know.”

John allows his amusement to show. It’s a good sign if Sherlock’s recovered enough to crack jokes. After setting up his patient on the sofa with abundant throws, pillows, and a convenient bucket, he pops out of the house for a few minutes; there’s nothing in the house appropriate for an invalid to eat, and after semi-starvation for goodness knows how long, reintroducing the man to solid food is going to be a careful process.

When he gets back in, weighed down with broths, bread, and the mildest ginger beer he can find, the detective has fallen fast asleep. Bright rays from the sunset warm his face, and it occurs to John that he’s never seen Sherlock in the daytime before, only by lamp or moonlight. The peaceful golden light seems almost unnatural on those familiar features, a solitary moment of softness in a hard life.

He rather enjoys the look of it this way.

John settles down in an armchair to read his new biography of Joseph Bell, and wait.

Around ten o’clock that night Sherlock starts stirring. John’s ears prick up as he hears a few hopeful gurgles; it sounds like normal hunger rather than indigestion, and when he checks the fever that’s ebbed too. He tries to stop eying Sherlock’s undressed torso – the blankets have slipped down, and now that his patient is definitely in recovery it’s hard not to think of other things…Determinedly, he returns to the biography and so successfully applies his mind that when someone pads over and taps him on the shoulder, it comes as a mild shock.

“This is going to sound odd, but I’m rather peckish now, and I’ve not been sick since you left. Do you think it’d be all right if I had something, now?” Sherlock’s stomach confirms the statement with an unruly growl; he blushes.

John slaps the book shut without even inserting a marker and strides into the kitchen. “Brilliant. Feeling better, then?”

“Much. All down to you.”

“Don’t fuss about that.” He applies a tin opener to the soups, pouring enough in the saucepan for both of them; in all the chaos he’s not had much appetite either.

“I suppose there’s no chance of anything more substantial?” Sherlock says hopefully. He wanders in, curiously poking around in the cupboards. “Why are there internal viscera in your refrigerator?”

“Bloody hell, I forgot about that. Haggis. Look, I know it sounds like a nuisance, but it’d be best to test you on just a bowl or so tonight. If you’re still feeling all right tomorrow morning, you can take something heartier then.”

Sherlock protests but gives way – he’s not totally ignorant about proper medical treatment – and allows himself to be quieted with the broth and toast. They watch an Ealing comedy, in which Alec Guinness makes a complete prat of himself running amuck in Paris. They don’t even talk, just sit there glancing at each other as they eat and enjoy the telly. Domestic. It seems the most normal thing in the world.

As John prepares for bed (his own bed, Sherlock having insisted on sleeping in the sitting room), he feels tears prickle behind his eyelids. It takes a few moments to blink them away, before he goes out to fetch a last cup of tea and tell his patient good night. By then Sherlock is already asleep again.

Monday morning, he’s gone before John has woken up. All that’s left is his blue scarf, with a note pinned to the top.

“Thank you for taking care of me. Sorry to trouble you.”

In the flurry of emotions that runs through him – anger at abandonment, bewilderment at his feeling of abandonment, anxiety for his friend, professional concern for the welfare of someone who’s still in delicate condition, whatever the patient thinks his body is capable of – one thought gains predominance. It is a very simple one: autumn is here now, and without the extra warmth from the scarf, the man’s going to be cold. And Sherlock does not need to be cold just now.

“Where would I go,” he asks out loud of the empty flat, “if I were him?”

Nobody replies, of course.

His rooms suddenly seem distressingly, overpoweringly large.

 

Sherlock is asleep on a park bench in Regent’s Park, wrapped tightly in his blue tweed. His face is drawn and grey, and it occurs to John that the man’s not getting any younger. Part of that is just the illness – a few weeks will restore the natural bounce to those curls, smooth over the stress lines – but there’s no easement on such a path. How long can even Sherlock keep up a lifestyle like this, with today’s just-about-tolerable eccentricity turning to quiet, unnoticed misery as the years pass?

John slips in besides him and glares away at the copper who glances at them curiously. It works; the officer hastens away, quickly. He tucks the scarf around Sherlock’s neck and ties it off neatly into a bow.

“What’d you follow me out here for, then.” The protest is so grumpily matter of fact that John finds it immensely cheering, but he doesn’t plan to let on quite so fast.

“You’re still sick, and you need looking after. I don’t abandon my patients.”

Sherlock raises himself up and looks at him, wanly but with his own natural grace about him again. “Don’t be silly, Doctor Watson. It was a minor complaint, I’m feeling quite myself now.”

“Glad to hear it. Come back with me, please.”

“So you can practice your doctoring on me again? Offer your charity?”

“No. So I can be with you, all right? For the rest of my life if you’ll let me. Is that too much to ask?” His voice rises so that the last phrase comes out almost angry; John hears the edge of childhood training creep into his voice, the “oo” wobbling and the last two words run together raggedly. Nothing like the way he would have liked to sound while proposing, in the abstract, but this isn’t abstract. It’s just life. 

Sherlock regards him stolidly for a moment, gauging a stranger’s sincerity against his own safety one last time, then breaks. “No. I suppose it isn’t,” he half-whispers, and reaches out for a tender embrace.

Because this is London, a few on-lookers smile and clap. John glares at them too and gently guides his love back to Baker Street. Sherlock’s dazed, leaning against him for support more and more heavily but holding on tightly.

As John fumbles for his keys at the door, trying to recall where he’s left them this time, Sherlock’s hand slips into his trouser pocket. For a moment he thinks it’s a playful gesture, then he realizes that’s where he left the ring. Sherlock proffers them automatically, then second-guesses himself.

“May I?” he asks, breathless.

“Yours as much as mine, now,” John promises.

The sound of a door unlocking has surely never been so sweet before.

They don’t even make it into the bedroom; Sherlock drops onto the sofa and lies there eyes closed, tired by his exertions. John retrieves a convenient throw from the neatly folded pile on the floor and covers the two of them with it. The sofa is slightly too small for two grown men; he wedges Sherlock into its crack and undoes the coat so as to more effectively transfer body heat. It’s his own idea of a comforting position, pressed between softness and warmth.

“That’s good, isn’t it?”

“Mmm. Yes.”

“You just lie there and get your strength back. As long as you like. Nobody’s going to come along and stop us, or tell us to move on, or shout, or anything.” His diction cracks again; the last words are slurred out. “I love you, y’know.”

“John,” Sherlock murmurs shyly, cuddling under him. “Do you really mind London all that much?”

A hungry yearning for Edinburgh rises in his heart, but John subdues it. Love wouldn’t mean much without its attendant sacrifices. Though he knows he’ll never quite get over his longing, will spend the rest of his life aching a little for his Scottish homeland every day, being with Sherlock far outweighs that cost.

“Not so bad a place as all that, I’m finding. Then too,” as he ruffles his love’s hair, “I’ve finally discovered a roommate I can put up with.”

The low, bubbling giggle in response is adorable. Sherlock’s never looked quite so secure or happy before.

John hopes to see that expression many and many a time to come.


	2. Chapter 2

I began with the actual opening lines: an instinctive feeling that this John needed to be uncomfortable in London, which led towards Conan Doyle’s Edinburgh background as obvious contrast. That shaped his characterisation and eventual dilemma, more so as I couldn’t get away from the idea of a John who sounded English, looked English, but wasn’t English. The actual technical explanation for this tension came fairly late in the story’s construction, but the reversal was the point; a man who does live on Baker Street and doesn’t like it as opposed to one in his element in all ways except for not being able to live anywhere in London. The ending section, with Sherlock’s food poisoning, escape to Regent’s Park, and the reconciliation, was plotted fairly early on as well; I sought a happy ending. It was the middle that was complicated. 

For one, would it be quicker and simpler to just have John invite Sherlock into the apartment after their Hampstead Heath encounter and save myself nine thousand words or so? Doesn’t work. Sherlock (here I’m specifically talking about BBC Sherlock; tackling this brief with a Victorian Sherlock is not on) is obsessed with his dignity, more than willing to be alone for the sake of his image, more than willing to put on an effect to save face. I thought a homeless Sherlock would be likely to have these traits more keenly-developed, to account for the greater extent to which his behaviour really would be just an act. 

Or, to anthropomorise my character, he didn’t wish to be carried off bodily from a romantic encounter with John; he wanted to be solving a case instead. Which is, after all, what Sherlock does. So I worked up a case based loosely on Alan Amos’ notorious run-in and had them meet that way. I suppose I might invented a different way for John to get interested than straight-up sexual attraction, but seriously. It is the most obvious plot device for getting two men of dramatically different socio-economic status to want to associate with each other.

Hence the scene at Angelo’s (all right, John doesn’t like Italian simply because I’ve rewritten the scene so many times I’m tired of Italian too, having now done everything from the simplest to most complicated to just plain pizza iterations. Why couldn’t Moffat have had them go for a curry?That’s a good idea. Next time I rewrite the scene I shall set it in some other restaurant. )

The cases were all nicked straight from Conan Doyle. Modern Sherlock may be easier to write, but there’s so much to draw upon in the original.

I skimmed lightly over the drugs backstory – a Sherlock so badly addicted that he ended up in this situation would have a very difficult time putting his life together even to the extent we see it – but he has, after all, had years to get clean. I'd had an idea about the homeless support network (you know, the one that on the show always has Sherlock outside looking in) helping him get back on his feet, but that never made it in. Nor did a mooted scene of John musing over what Sherlock could have been if he wasn’t so smug, ostentatiously self-righteous, unbearably right about his deductions...

Mycroft was a consideration, but had to go thematically. A Mycroft hard-hearted enough to let his brother stay homeless is of no use (the only reason to mention a version like that is to drive home the tragedy; Sherlock doesn’t succumb to self-pity). It’s irrelevant whether he’s dead or uninterested, whatever; what safety and funds might have been accessible to Sherlock via his successful older brother are unavailable. 

I might have had a homeless Mycroft, but that idea literally didn’t occur to me until writing these notes. Makes less sense than doing a story about a beached whale. Whales do occasionally wash up on beaches, whereas if you take the power and authority away from a character who is very nearly defined by his use of power – applying Sherlock’s gifts to a wider sphere – you’ve taken away just about everything that makes him identifiable. 

The Lestrade scene came along fairly late; one of the subsidiary questions that’d interested me was how a different socioeconomic status might change Sherlock's relationship to the force, or not (Lestrade is equally corruptible or incorruptible, depending on how you look at things, whatever Sherlock he’s dealing with, but the situation looks fair different to John). Donovan and Anderson were fairly generic, but as I needed someone to blurt out the truth, Anderson was convenient. 

And then that sex scene...well, I needed to precipitate a crisis. It being improbable that John would allow this state of affairs to go on forever. John, as always, can only guess at Sherlock’s state of mind. 

Rather pleased with the “internal viscera” joke. Some things stay the same...and yes, there's a logical explanation about the umbrella deduction. The bar selling Very Ordinary Claret is placed about right if you gauge where it ought to be in relation to St Bart’s.


End file.
